


The Arstotzkan Rat

by SaturnFebralski



Category: Papers Please (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Character Death, Drama, Dystopia, Gen, Harm to Children, Police, Police Brutality, Politics, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21513763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaturnFebralski/pseuds/SaturnFebralski
Summary: Moris Vonel, the investigator, was also known among criminals as "The Arstotzkan Rat".This is a story about what made Vonel be what he is now.
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Арстотцкая Крыса](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/536707) by Saturn Febralski. 



Sometimes, people in trouble with the law called Moris Vonel “The Arstotzkan Rat”. Actually, he had earned this nickname a long time ago, in his school years. It all started in the third grade, when he moved to Paradizna and went to the local gymnasium.   
Being a gifted child, he had always been the model student. Moris yearned for the extra knowledge – he loved books and always was the first to finish his tasks, he asked for extra homework and listened attentively to everything lecturers said. So, his teachers loved him.  
Same couldn’t be said about other kids. Among classmates, Moris was always the odd one out.  
Of course, being erudite, he could make a conversation with any adult. But kids could sense his oddness. Something was off about him – maybe it was his inability to pronounce the letter “r”, or his monotonous voice, or his face, always straight…  
Or maybe it was the fact that Moris himself wasn’t too happy to communicate with the other kids. He was utterly annoyed by all the hustle his classmates usually made during the breaks. If the noise became intolerable, he crawled under his desk, covering head with his hands. Sometimes that could happen right on the lesson, if the kids started whispering and giggling. When the teacher was him sitting under the desk once again, she asked if everything is okay. Moris would be able to learn again, once she said a couple of words to the class. In a very loud voice.  
Since then, the boy started to use that. It seemed that teachers were convinced Vonel had migraines or something like that, and tried to eliminate every nuisance he faced. First, he only complained about things that really distracted him from studying. Then, Moris noticed that every complaint makes him look more diligent in the eyes of teachers. He never lied and never exaggerated. He only observed and found out little secrets. High-schoolers smoking in the basement, girls exchanging notes, five-graders making up nicknames for teachers…  
That’s what his classmates didn’t like the most and that’s the reason why they started calling him “The Rat” in the first place. Also, they noticed his “ratty” appearance: his small height, small eyes, sharp facial features…   
Vonel never cried when they mocked him. And never replied. But if he said something, he left his opponent in tears. His wits helped him in debated, because on every insult, he could reply with a reminder of an unpleasant fact of his rival’s life.   
Soon, they got used and tried to avoid Moris. Sometimes, they even avoided making eye-contact with him, expecting something outstandingly nasty from his side. And he, he was always expecting something outstandingly dumb.   
Sometimes he thought why people are so stupid and why aren’t they able to abide by the simple set of rules. As Moris had no friends, he had nothing to do during the breaks, and he found another activity. He wandered in the corridors, imagining a perfect world. Other children often crashed into him while rushing through the hall. This was making Moris furious. His face remained still, but this ice-cold piercing look in his eyes spoke by himself.  
A perfect world for Moris was the structured world. All the people were born the same. The world had clear rules, and people only behaved according to these rules. Friendship and love didn’t exist – just because you don’t need these thinks for productive working.   
These childhood dreams outgrew into something bigger. Politics became Moris’s main interest. He read everything he could find in hid school library. The more he read, the more loyal to Arstotzka he became. The rhetoric of socialism seemed close to him, and notions of Arstotzkan philosophizes and politicians looked like something from his owns imagination.

No wonder Moris Vonel became the very person we know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit by Vinegar

The evening arrived upon Arstotska. After a difficult day of conducting dozens of interrogations, Arstotzkan Rat was heading home from work. His Class-5 apartment was near the Eastern Grestin’s town center. Inside it, there was Moris’s working cabinet, a living room, and the bedroom. Their rooms were all rather small. Moris didn't need much space - unlike his pregnant wife.

He was in his second marriage. His first spouse, Anna, left him because she thought he wasn’t showing her enough attention. His first marriage was almost an experiment, or an attempt, to sort himself out amidst a midlife crisis. Their first year was full of love and passion - very unusual for Moris - but it all ended nonetheless once the magic had faded. After the initial romance, they stayed together for a surprisingly long time. Anna and Moris didn’t have any kids, simply because he didn’t want any. They were honest to each other. In fact, for the last two years, Anna was dating another man without bothering to hide it in any way, while Moris started to pay less and less attention to Anna’s existence.

Maria met Moris Vonel during the war. She fell in love as she saw him reading the government decree aloud. She caught him in the rare moments when he wasn’t gazing absolutely indifferent and cold. His eyes, usually covered by shaded glasses, were this time uncovered and glowing with an insane fire. And Maria, being stunned and impressed, stalked him as his secret admirer for roughly a year.

Moris began to notice her. It would be odd for him to not probe her feelings. He was rather cold towards her, testing her, giving her attention by little bits. He enjoyed watching how Marie got excited, almost ecstatic, about every clue or a hint of something romantic between them. 

Frankly, he didn’t feel anything for Maria. Not a little bit. A second marriage and having children were a “Lesser-Evil” when he chose not to become even worse in the eyes of people around him. He wanted to use it as an alibi, if someone would call him heartless again - like they had countless times.

Maria seemed to have understood that, but she already couldn’t go anywhere. When Moris came home, his wife was in the bedroom, reading a book. Knowing her husband was tired after work and was deep in his thoughts as usual, she left him alone and didn’t even greet him. On the kitchen table, there was a dinner served for one. Moris used to eat alone behind doors shut tight. Sometimes he was so busy he brought food to his cabinet and locked up there until the morning. When he slept on the same bed with Maria, he usually wrapped himself in a blanket like it was a cocoon.

In a typical day, Moris had to interrogate from ten to thirty different people. Having a truly phenomenal memory, he built a net of Arstotzka’s criminal world in his head. Sometimes, he put it on the graph paper. No one else could figure out what the schematics meant, but for Moris, it was a clear way to store information.  
The investigator walked in the closet and reached to the table. He drew a couple of lines on the scheme, stepped back, and observed his work from a distance. Yes, his case still has some points missing... some very important points. But, day by day, the situation was becoming clearer. 

The person who would be interrogated next is Alexander Volsky.

It’s a wonder how the brain is able to store memories of events taking place thirty years ago… Moris remembered his classes in middle school; the food in the school cafeteria was fine, but the portion got smaller and smaller with every passing year. This was all because of the crop failure in Arstotzka. Eventually, they stopped giving biscuits for dessert. Everyone was upset by it. He also remembered how as soon as it started, children from poor families, started missing lessons more often.

A week or two passed, and young Moris suddenly saw his classmates after lessons, eating a biscuit together. Moris knew that they would never share it with him, so he hid behind the tree and watched them. Where did they get this dessert?

When he saw them pass Sasha - one of the kids who was missing lessons - two credits, he realized that he was the one who sold them the biscuits! He must’ve been buying them in the bakery near his house and selling them for the doubled price, since the biscuits were only one credit at the bakery. No one wondered where Sasha got money to buy the first batch, and no one got angry because of how capitalistic it was of Sasha to do so. Only Moris did.

When Sasha started to head home, Vonel followed him - sneaking like a rat. When he asked the sly boy where he got the money to buy biscuits, Sasha spat on the floor, grinned, and said. “That’s not your business, dumbass! Go read your stupid books while I make some deals. Soon, I’ll move to Obristan!”

Moris reported those exact words to the school principal. On Friday, he had extra lessons after school, and he had to come home alone and in the darkness. His way home was near the abandoned construction site. Suddenly, someone grabbed him to the side.  
«You, rat, listen here», - someone said. – «Enough snitching. One more time, and you’re dead. Understood?» They had stolen all his money and everything he had with him except for his own clothes. They even tore his report card apart. Finally, they blew their noses into his pioneer red scarf… and all the while, Sasha, the leader of this assault, was standing near, chewing a biscuit.


End file.
